Scientific dinosaur model data

rpm45

I found out about this today: A group of scientists have released a whole suite of data for 17 different dinosaurs. These are (I think) fairly detailed models, that they used for estimating mass distribution to figure out how these critters would have balanced and moved. The shape models are all in .obj format.

http://datadryad.org/handle/10255/dryad.47161

The data isn't really directly useful in its current form. The .obj's are for _segments_ of each dinosaur's body, and were intended for mass estimation rather than visual modelling. You'd have to load up all the parts and somehow assemble them to see if there's anything useful for rendering.

But I thought somebody here might be able to do something with all this data, either for improving models or even animations. Good luck!

[From the 2013 paper in Nature entitled
“Linking the evolution of body shape and locomotor biomechanics in bird-line archosaurs”
By Vivian Allen, Karl T. Bates, Zhiheng Li and John R. Hutchinson]